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Great Composer Quiz - Previous Answers (Highlight to reveal the Composer or Masterwork)

May 7th: Name that Tune/Composer: It's a birthday quiz today, as this Great composer was born on this date in 1840. He was born in the small town of Votkinsk, Russia. For your tune, at the time of his death at age 53 the composer claimed he felt this was his greatest symphony.
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky and his Symphony No.5


May 6th: This time it's a Great Conductor Quiz. This Great Conductor was forced out of his last gig by angry musicians, but now he has been named as the tenth music director in the history of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, starting with the 2010-11 season. He had previously turned down the position of music director at the New York Philharmonic. It's a five-year contract, for him to conduct ten weeks a season, in addition to leading domestic and foreign tours. His salary was not disclosed, but his predecessor received $2.03 million. So who is this new maestro in Chicago, this Great Conductor?
Riccardo Muti, who in 2005 was forced out as Music Director at La Scala after nearly twenty years. Unlike his predecessor in Chicago, Daniel Barenboim, who shunned all responsibilities that didn't relate directly to making music, Muti has made it clear he wants to be a big part of the orchestra's outreach programs. Muti first conducted the Chicago Symphony in 1975. He later became Music Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra.


May 5th: This time it's a quiz to find out if you have done the required reading over the weekend. At age 27 this Great Composer described himself as sensual and jealous by nature. He married that year to a woman who was artfully-inclined and possessed a certain stoicism in her manner. Our Great Composer would later remind her she also possessed "colossal reserves of iron and strength." Immediately after their wedding our Great Composer's first major work was named after the area in which he and his new bride had honeymooned. So who was this new groom, this Great Composer?
Jean Sibelius. More details can be found right here on our website. Check out "The Confidence of the Newlywed."


May 2nd: This Great Composer once wrote of his experience at the conservatory, "After three years of hard labor, here I am with a diploma in my hand which bestows on me the title of contrapuntalist. Proud of my learning, I set out to compose. My first work is this style is Choral and Fugue for piano duet. I have certainly been yelled at in my poor life, but never have I been so looked down on. What had I been up to with [my teacher]? I had written pieces before with such rich charm! And now? What a drag! What a bore!" So who was this man unhappy with his school, this Great Composer?
Erik Satie, who returned to school at age forty, the Scholar Cantorum, where he studied with Albert Roussel and Vincent d'Indy. That passage about his Choral and Fugue was written in the catalogue he kept of his own works. In it Satie wrote short advertisements for many of his pieces. Regarding the Gymnopedies he wrote, "We cannot recommend too highly to music-lovers at large this deeply artistic work which is rightly described as one of the finest of the age into which this poor gentleman was born.”


May 1st: This time it's a Quiz about how to stand up for your friends. After a performance of a new work by a friend, our Great Composer found himself among a large group of concertgoers, and one in particular was trashing the new music. He found fault first with one thing and then with another... he went on and on with - what was described as - "impudent assurance," and he said, "I should never have done it in that way!" At this point our Great Composer was fed up, and he stopped the critic and replied, "Nor should I, but do you know why? Because neither you nor I would have had so good an idea." So who was this loyal friend, this Great Composer?
Mozart, who stood up for his friend Joseph Haydn after a performance of one of Haydn's string quartets. The loud mouth critic was Leopold Kozeluh, who it so happens was offered the post Mozart left in Salzburg, but refused it.


Apr 30th: Name that Tune ~ This piece was written for cellist Wilhelm Fitzenhagen, who was also a professor at the Moscow Conservatory. However, after Fitzenhagen performed the premier of the piece, he grew rather moved to change the original score. As a result of moving around the score sections, Fitzenhagen wrote the composer praising his own changes. As a result of the composer's insecurity, the changes stood... at least until 1941, when cellist Victor Kubatsky did extensive score reconstruction, and played the as intended original 1877 version.
Variations on a Rococo Theme by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky


Highlights for May 5th - May 9th:

Monday, May 5
6:00 Music to celebrate Cinco de Mayo by Mexican composers Carlos Chavez and Silvestre Revueltas.
7:00 New Release: Martha Argerich and Friends at the Lugano Festival 2007, playing the Beethoven Ghost Trio.
8:15 Stravinsky Speaks.  The start of a series with the Great Composer in conversation about some of his greatest works.  Today: the premiere of the ballet The Rite of Spring.

Tuesday, May 6
7:00 New Release: Erich Kunzel conducts the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra in music from Carmen by Bizet.
8:15 Stravinsky Speaks.  More of Igor Stravinsky talking about the premiere of the concert version of The Rite of Spring.  Also, a performance by the conductor who led that premiere Pierre Monteux.

Wednesday, May 7
7:00 New Release: Pianist Anne-Marie McDermott and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra conducted by Justin Brown perform George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.
8:15 Stravinsky Speaks.  More of our series of Igor Stravinsky in conversation about some of his most dynamic works.  Today he talks about how he wrote L'Histoire du Soldat (The Soldier's Tale).  Also, a performance of music from the work conducted by Stravinsky in 1961.

Thursday, May 8
7:00 New Release: One of the foremost Japanese composers of the first half of the 20th century, Hisato Ohzawa's Symphony No.2, from 1934.
8:15 Stravinsky Speaks.  The last in our series featuring Igor Stravinsky in conversation.  Today the Great Composer talks about seeing Tchaikovsky, and about performing his own music.  We’ll also hear Stravinsky at the piano with violinist Samuel Dushkin in the Suite italienne, recorded in 1933.

Friday, May 9
6:15 Carlo Maria Giulini, born in Barletta, Italy on this date in 1914, is heard in conversation, along with some of his most beloved records.
7:00 New Release: Gambist Paolo Pandolfo and harpsichordist Rinaldo Alessandrini play a sonata by Carl Philipp Emanual Bach.
8:02 The best selling classical record in America today, according to the Billboard charts.
8:15 What's New at the Movies?  Sample clips from films opening today.

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